Wii Hula and Step Games Can Provide Exercise Benefits-at Intermediate or Higher Levels, Reports The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research
Can Wii Fit Make You Fit?
Wii Hula and Step Games Can Provide Exercise Benefits-at Intermediate or Higher Levels, Reports The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research
Philadelphia, PA (March 9, 2011) – Playing two Wii Fit video games-Step and Hula-can provide adequate exercise to improve health and physical fitness, reports a study in the March issue of The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, official research journal of the National Strength and Conditioning Association. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.
These Wii Fit games “can be used as an effective mode of physical activity to improve health in adult women,” according to the study by honors students Jennifer R. Worley and Sharon N. Rogers, and their advisor, Robert R. Kraemer, Ed.D., FACSM, of Southeastern Louisiana University, Hammond. However, the researchers emphasize that players “should strive to participate at higher (intermediate) game levels” to gain exercise benefits.
Active Video Games Have Potential to Improve Fitness
Healthy young women were studied while playing Wii Fit games: Step, a step aerobics workout; and Hula, a simulated hula-hoop game. Oxygen consumption, energy expenditure, and other measures of the body’s response to exercise were assessed as players advanced through different levels of each game.
